


Love Languages in a Time Of Touch-Aversion

by KatyaMorrigan



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fjerdan traditions come in handy, Fluff, Hair Braiding, Kaz being soft, Kaz is obsessed with Inej's hair, Wholesome, learning to love, we know this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatyaMorrigan/pseuds/KatyaMorrigan
Summary: While trying to find ways to express physical affection for each other, Kaz is struck by how much he loves Inej's hair. In learning to braid it and endure the physical closeness it brings them, a new kind of love language is born.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 12
Kudos: 93
Collections: SIX OF CROWS FICS





	Love Languages in a Time Of Touch-Aversion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vaulkner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaulkner/gifts).



> This was based on something @xandrei said during an Instagram Q&A about one of their favourite headcanons. I had to write it.  
> Do check out their art on Instagram, they do such fantastic work, and I adore their Kanej art in particular (as you can guess).

As they slowly leaned back with an all-too-heavy sigh, Kaz was hit again with the guilt of his inability to be intimate. Inej was still in his arms; sat on the end of the bed beside him, her hand on his sleeved shoulder, her face warmed by the effort of staying close to him. Even feeling the weight of her hand on his body was a burden sometimes, but right now he savoured that small connection they had. Once more they had tried to kiss, and once more they had had to fight back the feral urge to force the other away. It was torture, to want something as deeply as he wanted to touch her for real, and for it to be the one thing he couldn’t manage.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice rasping more than usual. Kaz sat back and swallowed, watching Inej move the impossible distance apart as well. Her face was still softer than his, gentle concern and compassion the only lines on her face.

“We don’t have to keep trying,” she assured him, fiddling with his shirt collar. “Whatever it is we can manage, that is enough.”

_It isn’t enough for me,_ he thought. As much as Kaz was able to weigh up the risks associated with any endeavours he made, financial or personal, this was one of the exceptional occasions where his desire took over his intuition.

He resettled his bad leg, pulling himself further away from Inej. It was difficult for both of them, that was all he had to remember. It hurt her just as much as it was hurting him – _so why couldn’t he do it for her?_

Kaz stood up, and offered a gloved hand to his girl. Inej gave him a warm smile as she helped herself up. Her grip was always so strong, and yet the body he helped to lift weighed nothing. She went to the windowsill and perched there with her knees up, like a vase, or a portrait, or any artefact that you would see in a more respectable office. Inej was something of beauty, that he had always appreciated, but there was something about the contrasts within her that always astounded him. Her skin was the colour of freshly ground coffee beans, and yet she glowed like palest lamplight. Every decision she made was so calculated, but that very calculation came from an animalistic instinct – when to leap, when to strike, when to stay completely still. She was silent when she moved, little more than a breath of wind over water, and yet she was always the centre of the room whenever she made herself visible. Kaz was certain that if they were some kind of colossal cosmic orchestration, he was just another silver-laced moon being dragged towards the welcoming depths of a richly black hole, velvet and cat’s fur and the curve of her smile.

“Would it be enough for you if we couldn’t touch like that?”

He dared to air the question to the room. It always happened when Kaz let himself dwell on Inej for too long while she was in the room. There was something about her always watchful presence that made the room feel full regardless of the space in between them; he couldn’t help releasing his thoughts into that plump atmosphere. Would he have done it with another Crow in the room? Of course not – he was smarter than that. But with Inej? He confused himself with the contradictions she encouraged in him.

Kaz finally looked up from the creased leather of his hands and confronted the picture of the woman in front of him. As he had dared to hope, her brow was furrowed only with an expression of permission – of compassion.

“We are not defined by our limits, Kaz; we are who we are in spite of them. Every time we get close to having what we want, I see you fighting against the armour you wear, and that is enough for me.”

“Can one fight against clothing that one is wearing?” he replied, a small smirk at the corner of his tired mouth.

“I daresay Nina has fought some clothing in her time,” Inej grinned back. “Anything that didn’t flatter her would be the fault of the item, and not her.”

“Or Jesper. He battles fashion daily, and I’m never sure who wins.”

They both chuckled, Kaz still trying to hold onto his composure. It wasn’t easy, letting himself reveal that sliver of vulnerability in asking her whether she would have him. He was Kaz Brekker – Dirtyhands, and all the rest of it, and the man who ran the Barrel wasn’t the one to be dropped by anyone, regardless of their gender, or stature, or the way their walnut-wood hair swung in a fascinating pendulum when it was kept in a long heavy braid. Inej’s thick rope of hair was now softly swaying as she turned her head back to the window, the curl at the end reminding Kaz of a paintbrush. He had so rarely seen her hair down – Inej was practical, and never allowed it to compromise her vision or movement – but now he was reminded on one of the few occasions that he had.

A few months before the mission into the Ice Court, Kaz had stopped by Inej’s small room to leave a note on her desk. It was entirely unsentimental, carrying the barest details necessary for her to find her next spying target, and would be burnt upon reading. Unthinkingly, he opened the door, and found her fresh from washing, sat in her nightclothes and towelling the ends of her hair dry. In its semi-damp state, that long glossy curtain of hair had developed miniature waves, curling noticeably at the ends where Inej was focusing her efforts. As she turned her head in surprise, Kaz was almost confused as to why there wasn’t a comical bouncing sound as she released her curling hair, and was so mesmerised by the movement that for a second, he lost his assurance and simply went back upstairs to his office with the note still in his hand.

“Sometimes I think I should chop it all off,” came the voice by the window. Inej had caught his sightline, and was now running her fingers over the smooth brown plait.

“Don’t do that.”

Kaz’s reply came out too quickly, and it took a lot of effort for his face to not reflect his embarrassment. Again, he was speaking without thinking, in a way only facilitated by Inej’s presence in the room that otherwise felt devoid of influence. Her dark eyes met his, and a supressed but pleased grin fitted itself to her mouth.

“Why not, Kaz?” Inej swung her legs down from the windowsill so that she was sat upright, hands by her thighs, leaning forwards just a little. Her face was turned to look at his, and immediately he felt like a little boy again, baffled by the face of someone more composed than him asking his opinion.

It was easier to retreat into his stoic form, to not dignify her with an answer, and pretend that his slight outburst hadn’t happened. But still her plaited hair was gently swaying with the minute movements of her lithe body at rest, imperceptible to anyone besides Inej herself. Briefly, Kaz wondered if she was doing it on purpose – making that beautiful plait swing just enough to catch his attention – but immediately made that silly lovesick voice in his head stay quiet.

“Why do you keep it so long, then?” he asked. A neutral question, perfectly understandable, that gave nothing away. Kaz chanced to step a little closer. It was a strange position to be in; the height of the window ledge made her a good foot taller than him, and for once it was his diminutive partner who was looking down on him with an expression bordering on contempt.

“Because it’s beautiful,” she said. It almost hurt him to hear her say it, to hear her acknowledge that fact of herself with such simplicity. The purity of it, the honesty… It was almost too much. “I’m allowed a little pride in my appearance. Suli girls usually keep their hair long for traditional reasons.”

At this, she released the band holding the plait together, and her fingers worked through the three locks that made it to create that one unified sheet of dark glossy hair.

“I may no longer be a traditional Suli girl, but it is part of my heritage, and I love that it is still a part of me that I can wear daily.”

Inej’s fingers rose up the waves of hair to her scalp, as she ruffled it at the roots to help it form a cohesive shape once more. Her hand disappeared under the thick locks, and Kaz was hit with the thought of doing that himself – smoothing it out at the back, reaching the back of her head, cupping her face in his hands like that, and seeing her beautiful features framed by a waterfall of dark, perfumed hair. How could he not do that? How was it possible that his own senses would deny him that?

It was worth a try.

“May I?”

The question was light enough as it left his mouth, but he could see that Inej understood how meaningfully it had been intended. She slowly removed herself from the windowsill, feet first, lowering herself to the ground with her palms flat against the ledge so that she stood in front of him, small once more.

She was here, in front of him, her face raised up to his in the same way she faced the sunlight when it streamed in from the window. There was no trace of apprehension on her face, her clear dark skin without tension, her mouth relaxed, her eyes carefully meeting his. Kaz raised his hands to her temples, and noticed his gloves again. He was still wearing them, like always, the leather only slightly darker than the head of hair they hovered over.

Wordlessly, he found the single button at either wrist, and took them off. Kaz turned away momentarily to drop them on the end of the bed, and raised his hands again. They were so pale, both from his Kerch complexion and the years hidden from sunlight, and contrasted as strongly with the woman in front of him as day and night. Slowly, he laid his palms on the sides of her head, and ran them downwards. Her hair was even softer than he had imagined, thick and cushioned against her head, so that there was no danger that he might touch skin by accident. It shifted slightly under his hands, and Inej closed her eyes with a sigh.

“You can touch me more than that,” she said, a slight smile in her voice, and Kaz gave a huffed laugh himself. He curled his fingers, catching thick locks in his hands and feeling the wonderful coolness as they slipped over each knuckle, between the gaps in his fingers, collecting like water. Reaching just under her face, Kaz brought his hands up to the back of her head, and slowly teased his fingers through her hair again, playing with each lock as though it were the string of an instrument. The weight of her hair was noticeable, and he found himself leaning closer and closer to reach further down the great length of it all. She lifted her arms to his shoulders, giving Kaz the space to reach around fully and trail his fingers through the infinite silky river. Inej’s hair reached the small of her back, and it was only as he felt the ends curling against his fingers that he realised this was the closest he had been to her in a non-combative setting without panicking. They were practically in an embrace, his hands so close to her waist that he could have pulled her against him and removed any gap between them in an instant.

“Do you want me to show you how to braid it?” Inej asked, so quietly that it came out like a sigh. Kaz drew back only a little bit, his face still so close to hers that their breath was mixing in the air.

“Please.”

He allowed himself a smile as Inej opened her eyes and searched his expression, a smile of her own blooming in response.

“It’ll be easier if we sit down,” she said, perching on the end of the bed again, beside his discarded gloves. In all the time he had been playing with her glorious hair, it hadn’t even occurred to Kaz that his hands were unprotected. He had been bare, touching her, and hadn’t even flinched.

He settled on the bed behind her, sat on his knees, gently tracing the slight waves of her hair with absolute reverence.

“You’ll need to section my hair into three strands,” she instructed him. “It’s easier with a comb – mine is on the nightstand.”

Kaz shuffled along the bed and found it resting beside a book she had been reading the previous night. He used the pencil-thin handle of the comb to split it into three, as he had been told, but took his time in making sure those three partitions were even. It was so easy to lose his fingers under the dark hair, to feel its silky weight run over every inch of his hands, that he didn’t really think much of the duration that had passed until Inej said with a degree of amusement, “It normally only takes me about ten seconds to do that.”

“I’m doing it properly,” he replied, “I want it to be perfect.”

“I’m not expecting perfection, Kaz.”

“I am.”

This was going to be the most beautiful plait Inej had ever worn. It was going to be created with love, and that outweighed every thirty second occasion that she had braided it for convenience.

“Once you’ve stopped finicking over it, it’s a very simple pattern to follow. Move the left portion over the middle portion, and then pull the new left and right portions tight. Not too tight,” she added quickly.

He carefully laid the ropes of hair over each other, and then tugged the criss-cross that it had created up to the nape of Inej’s neck.

“Now do the same, with the right portion. Keep doing that, alternating left and right, until you run out of hair.”

“I do feel like I couldn’t possibly run out of hair,” Kaz commented, beginning his precise braiding.

“I’m preparing for jokes about using my plait as a tightrope.” The voice coming from in front of him was warm with a smile, and he couldn’t help teasing her.

“Is that how you practised your acrobatics as a child?”

“You’re lucky I’m even letting you touch all my lovely hair,” she replied with a tut.

“Trust me when I say I’m grateful that you have.” He ran his fingers over the tight, smooth plait that was growing before his eyes.

“Since when have I been foolish enough to trust your word?” Inej replied, her tone soft.

“Since you stayed with me for as long as you have.”

He didn’t know if he was commenting on her stint with the Dregs, or with the Crows, or with himself. Did it matter? Inej had committed herself to trusting him since the first day they had met, and Kaz had worked harder than he had ever previously done to prove to her that it was not a mistake. Whatever it was he had done – not much more than lead her into danger at every step of the way, as was the reality of living in the Barrel – it had clearly worked. She was sat in front of him, her back straight and shoulders apart, letting him comb his fingers through the glorious hair that she prized as the most beautiful part of her. Kaz wasn’t in a position to elaborate on the beauty of the rest of her being, but that sign of trust was more than enough for him.

As he reached the midpoint, where the plait was starting to droop in his hands under its own weight, Kaz caught his own movement in the mirror placed opposite the bed, behind his desk. Looking up instinctively, he saw that Inej had been watching him in it the whole time. He hadn’t even realised she could see everything he was doing – how careful he was being.

“You’re making the same face as the one you wear when you’re picking a lock,” she said, catching his eye in the reflection.

“I’m focused,” he said, but it didn’t stop a hint of blush creeping over his cheeks. Now increasingly aware of Inej’s eyes on him as he wove her hair, Kaz increased the speed with which he worked.

“I have run out of hair,” he declared, holding the end of the plait and lifting it around her shoulder so that Inej could judge its completion.

“Now, a hair tie.” She passed him the same black band that had previously secured her own work, and Kaz wrapped it around the end of the plait a few times.

Inej sat resplendent in front of him, her hair catching the light from the window as she ran her hand over the back of her head, feeling the bumps of the braid until she reached the paintbrush curl at the very end.

“Did I do well?” Kaz asked. She smiled at him from the mirror

“It’s certainly much better than my first attempt at a braid was.”

Inej turned around, looking up at him with pleasure and amusement. “I don’t know how well I expected this to go, but it was lovely.”

“Really?”

Kaz’s heart gave an extra beat.

“It felt special having someone else do my hair for me,” Inej elaborated. “Normally it’s a chore, but now it’s a thing we can, well, share together.”

“I felt the same.” He shifted from sitting behind Inej on his knees to joining her at the end of the bed, wincing as his bad leg stretched out again. Inej reached out and laid a hand on his knee, and he smiled at her before reaching out to smooth the few stray hairs at her temple.

“Would you like to braid my hair more often?” she offered. It must be an offer; it had been a gift to be allowed to in the first instance.

“If you will let me, I’ll do it every day.”

“I would love you to.”

As he only ever felt the need to do when she was around, Kaz’s face broke into a wide, genuine smile. He knew it was a rare occurrence, especially as Inej’s face flushed at the sight of his happiness. It was painfully endearing to see her warm face blushing, knowing that she had made a monster like him grin at the thought of braiding her hair.

Inej ducked her head in a moment of uncharacteristic shyness, and leaned into his shoulder. He put his arm around her, carefully to lay his still bare hands only on her upper arm, where she was okay to be touched and where he wouldn’t accidentally brush skin. Kaz rested his chin on the top of her head, inhaling deeply and then sighing. It was the closest they could be, for now, and it was more than enough. Testing his limits once again, Kaz turned his face and laid his cheek on the warm smooth hair that he had braided himself. It was all he could do not to nuzzle against her, to feel that silky softness against his face, and to kick up more of her warm, aromatic scent.

His face turned again, and his lips were an inch from the top of Inej’s head. This might work. There was no skin to touch his, only her dark glossy hair, and the feeling of her slight solid form against him.

“May I?” he asked again, lifting his hand to run his fingers over the curve of hair beside her ear.

“You may.”

Kaz Brekker pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in her smell, clasping her just a little closer to him.

“You are beautiful,” he murmured into her hair. It was the only way for them to be vulnerable with each other – no skin-on-skin contact, held at arm’s length, any gesture that was not physical – but like this, he could have that barrier to protect the two of them still intact, without the absence of intimacy that it would usually induce. He could hold his girl, kiss her softly, and show her that he knew she was more beautiful than anything a man like him deserved.

There was a knock at the door. Kaz sighed and slowly released Inej from their sideways embrace. They looked at each other and gave self-conscious but pleased smiles as Kaz slid his gloves back over his hands and fastened them securely. Inej stood up and walked to the door, opening it.

“Card’s time,” said Jesper, stepping into the room. “I’ve left Roeder to deal, but I wanted to know if you two will join us this evening.”

Kaz looked to Inej, who smiled at the tall grinning man in the doorway.

“I’ll happily play a few rounds,” she said.

“We both will,” Kaz amended. He stood up too and picked up his cane from beside the desk, slipping his other hand into Inej’s as they followed Jesper out of the door.

“Hang on, you’ve redone your hair,” the latter commented, tweaking the end of Inej’s plait.

“Actually, Kaz did it.” She gave the answer so breezily that Jesper almost didn’t react as she walked down the stairs, releasing Kaz’s hand and leaving him stood on the landing beside their friend.

It was one thing to braid his girl’s hair to show her the trust and love he had for her. But it was completely another thing to do it just to see Jesper speechless and struggling as Kaz rejoined Inej at the bottom of the stairs, a private smile passing between them.

_“Kaz_ braided your _hair?_ Hey, wait up!”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this was meant to be a short drabble just exploring the headcanon put forward by @xandrei, but as you can see... I got carried away. Credit goes to Xan for this idea, I loved writing it, and if you haven't already, go check out their incredible art on Instagram.  
> There will be a second part in which Kaz gets a little bit more creative with the hairstyles he can do, but I didn't want to include it in this part as it would be way longer then. I will write it very soon and hope to have added it over the next week or so.  
> Thank you for reading, any feedback is welcome as this is my first Kanej fic and first fic on AO3, and I hope you enjoyed it.


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